He strained his senses trying to determine if there was anyone behind the door, waiting for someone to get close, but he didn’t hear anything and didn’t smell anything beyond the blood and the lingering musty scent  from the bookshop downstairs. Still, he kept his right arm cocked back as he reached down and snagged the note, ready to pop his claws at a moment’s notice. Abruptly, he was hit by a sense of déjà vu again, this time from reading a bloody note. When?

Oh, right, Yasha’s place. Suddenly, Logan knew who had left this note, but he wasn’t at all comforted by the knowledge.

“What time is it?” Srina called sleepily from the bedroom.

He glanced at the clock, and then, surprised at what it said, glanced at the DVD clock. Yep, that was the right time. Damn. “It’s noon. We slept in late.” He went to the kitchen, tearing open the pale pink, marble patterned envelope,

“Are you putting the kettle on?”

“No.”

“Yes you are,” she replied, making it sound like a warning.

He sighed, heading for the silver tea kettle when he got to the kitchen, making sure there was enough water in it.  There was, so he just put it on a burner and turned on the stove.  He then leaned against the counter and pulled out a single sheet of pink marbled stationary, where the words were written in elegant script, and the “ink” was Human blood.  It read, simply and cryptically: ‘L - Tonight, sundown, the Velvet Cudgel. - H.’

Hashim. He wasn't sure which bothered him more - that Hashim continued to use Human blood to write notes, or that he knew where Srina lived.

“Where’s a place called the Velvet Cudgel?” He shouted, folding the note and putting it back in the envelope before ripping it into several pieces and tossing it in the garbage can she had under the sink.

It took Srina a moment, and he could hear her moving around in the bedroom, getting up, slipping on her robe. “Uh … you mean the goth S&M club? That’s in Southwark, I think, down from Butler‘s Wharf. Why? You wanna be spanked with a cricket bat?”

“Not particularly, no.” Other side of the Thames. That wasn’t Hashim's home turf, was it, or had he expanded his usual stomping grounds of Mayfair while he was gone?  It was possible that the Three Dragons were his only real competition in the gangster business, and with them out of the way, he could expand his empire. He didn’t think Hashim was bad, as far as vampires went, but he wasn’t good either, and he clearly had a taste for power. Logan knew there was a possibility that he would have to kill him eventually, even though Hashim had helped him kill Kali. The problem was, at the end of the day, he was not only a vampire but a gangster vampire, and a shrewd one at that.  He would do what he had to do to consolidate his power, to keep a stranglehold on it, from killing gods to killing people. And the stronger he got, the fewer the beings that could successfully take him on.  Logan knew, right from the beginning, that he would probably have to betray him, but Hashim probably expected as much - after all, why had he bothered to find out where Logan stayed while in London?  Betrayal was inevitable in this scenario; it wasn’t so much a matter of no honor among thieves as no honor among species that were at war with one another. At the end of the day, vampires were lethal parasites, and Humans were prey.  One would kill the other, not necessarily because they wanted to, but because they had to. Humans saw vampires as evil, and vampires found Humans to be delicious, even without ketchup - there was just no way to build a peaceful coalition.

The water had started to boil and he turned the burner heat down before opening the refrigerator and getting himself a beer. So why did Hashim want to see him?  Was this a set-up, the inevitable assassination attempt, or did he just want to talk?  He wouldn’t know until he got there, he supposed.

But Hashim was no fool. He’d seen him fighting, he knew about the claws, he knew about the connection to Bob. He wouldn’t make a move unless he was sure he could beat him.

Logan decided he wasn’t going to worry about it. After all, name dropping the Sisters would probably be enough to make him lose confidence in any take-down plan he had.

****

Srina was right about the club being in the Southwark section of London, but it was still hard to find, as it didn’t advertise itself like a normal club. It was on a block full of rustic brick-lined buildings, mostly quaint shops and pubs that tourists would find endearing, but at the end of the block was a boarded up pub - it looked fire scorched - with a sign out front reading “The Swan and Rose”. Beneath it was a small, hot pink arrow, pointing towards a narrow service alley besides the former pub. Following the alley, you’d come to a small building with a thick metal door, and a handpainted sign reading The Velvet Cudgel; he could hear the thudding bass of the music about five meters from the entrance.

Logan opened the door, and was assailed by Type O Negative’s song “Black Number One”, possibly the most metal-inclined goth song in existence.

The club was dark as hell, although not as hot, and lit sporadically with red, blue, and green spotlights that looked as if they were trying to mimic blood and decaying flesh, the colors of corrosion. The place was pretty full considering it wasn’t even seven yet, and most people were wearing leather and vinyl, PVC or spandex, even if it didn’t suit them. He saw one man with chains like leashes attached to his nipple rings, which were exposed because he wasn’t wearing a shirt.  Did Hashim really like places like this?  Or was he just here to snicker at the Human poseurs, who had no idea what real sadism was?

“Col, I was wonderin’ when you were gonna show up,” a man with a thick Scottish burr said behind him. Even before Logan got a look at him, he knew it was Scott, the Asian Scottish vampire, one of Hashim’s men. “I hate these fuckin’ cunts.  Sweaty leather smells like ‘orse’s bollocks.”

He was tempted to ask how he knew what horse’s balls smelled like, but Scott - much like the American Scott he knew - didn’t seem to have much in the way of a sense of humor. Maybe it was a hallmark of the name. “Where’s Hashim?”

The young vamp - couldn’t have been more than eighteen when turned - jerked his head toward the shadowy back of the club. “Private room. ‘e don’t like the riff-raff.” Without further comment he started leading the way, elbowing and shouldering aside anyone who didn’t move fast enough to get out of his way. Curiously, there weren’t a lot of protests about this, possibly because they came here specifically to be manhandled, and Scott was just giving them a freebie.

There were several back rooms, and even if he wasn't hearing the slap of a whip on bare flesh, it was pretty obvious what they were for. One room had an open door, and inside was what looked to be some variation of a medieval torture rack. Cute.  It all seemed very quaint compared to the contemporary dungeons of the Organization.

Scott headed for the second closed door before the end of the hall, on the left, and knocked on it twice before opening it.  Perhaps that was just a sign that it was expected company as opposed to unexpected. “’e’s ‘ere,” Scott said unnecessarily, holding the door open for Logan.

Hashim was seated at a table in the center of the room, a steel goblet set off to one side. On the back wall, shackles dangled flaccid and empty, while a locked cabinet full of riding crops and shorter whips waited to be used.  It looked like there were thumb screws and nipple clamps in there as well, which made him seriously worry about the Human race.  Maybe the demons had the right idea.

“Thank you for coming, Logan,” Hashim said, oddly British in his politeness. “I’m sure hearing from me was a shock.”

“It was … unexpected.”

“Leave us,” Hashim said to Scott, who was still holding open the door.

He rolled his eyes and made a strange, rude noise. “An’ go out there?  C’mon …”

“Maybe you’ll find an interesting wannabe.”

“There are never any interestin’ wannabes,” he protested, but he obeyed his boss and headed out, closing the door behind him.

“Wannabe?” Logan wondered, taking the only remaining seat in the room.  There was only him and Hashim, but this was designed to be a beating area, not a conference room.

Hashim, as always, was a picture of elegance, a lean, dark man in a wine dark leather driving coat, his high cheekbones and sloe eyes setting off the tribal scarring on his face, making it look curiously artistic.  His demeanor was measured and calm, a paragon of serenity, an ironic counterpoint to his demonic nature. “Humans who wish to become vampires. They think we come to places like these - they are unaware of the demon bars, usually - and hope to meet us, so they can be “made”.”  He sighed, a slender hand wrapping around the goblet full of goat’s blood. “I blame Anne Rice.  If she would just stop putting out those bloody stupid novels of hers, we’d all be much happier.”

“The wannabes are that bad?”

“Worse than you could possibly imagine. They think they can be undead rock stars, forever young and pretty, swanning about with the beautiful people. They know nothing of what it’s really like, and aren’t prepared for it. They’re sad, pathetic little children who think they will be instantly loved or feared once they become one of us.”

“Still, I can’t imagine you talkin’ ‘em out of it.”

“No, but we have no interest in changing them either.  They’re whiney little brats who are inevitably disappointed.”

“So what do you do with ‘em?”

“Mostly scare them away. Apparently we don’t resemble Tom Cruise in our demon faces.  Thank gods.”

Logan suspected there was more to it than that, that maybe they occasionally made a snack of these poor deluded people, but he decided not to push it. Besides, if you asked a vampire to bite you and they did, wasn’t that simply suicide?  If you rubbed your arm with bacon and dared a dog to bite, was it the dog's fault if it actually did what you asked?  “So why am I here?”

Hashim gave him the smallest of smiles. “You are never one for foreplay, are you?”

“Not in a sex dungeon, no.”

He sipped from his cup of blood, then set it aside once more. “Something odd is going on in the city.”

“It’s London. There’s always somethin’ odd going on. This place, for example.”

“It’s killing my people.”

Logan shook his head and glanced at the shackles on the wall, wondering how long they’d hold him before he broke the flimsy connecting chain. “Y’know, it’s nothing personal at all, but so fucking what? So there’s a vampire hunter in town - you can’t take care of them eventually, or simply move?”

“It’s not a vampire hunter. They usually don’t dismember their prey before killing them.”

“Dismember?  How do you know that’s happened?”

“Here’s a fun fact.  If you lop off a body part of a vampire - though not its head - it usually remains intact even if the vampire itself turns to dust. A withered, corpse limb is left behind. Of course, it decomposes much faster than a regular limb, which is one way you can tell it’s from a vampire …”

“So you’ve been finding rapidly decomposing limbs of your people?”

“Yes. A leg here, an arm there, sometimes a whole set.  It’s very curious.  The Weird Sisters aren’t with you, by any chance?”

Oh yes, the infamous dismemberers. “Not that I know of, although I don’t even try and keep track of those two.  Still, why would they rip your people to pieces?  Did you piss them off?”

He shook his head. “No, but considering their reputation, I didn’t think that was a prerequisite.”

“Well … put it that way …” Logan considered that a moment, but then shook his head. “If they were around, they’d let me know. They live to annoy the shit outta me.  And you don’t think they’re doing it, or you would have sent me a note simply asking me to tell them to stop.”

Hashim’s eyes were dark mirrors, giving him nothing, but he knew that he was being judged.  Hashim didn’t seem to find him wanting, though. “It’s always refreshing to talk to you. You’re always more intelligent than you seem.”

“And you ain’t too bad for a bloodsucking motherfucker. Can we just get to the point?  Why do you think I’d care about something killing your people, even if it is tearing them apart like Christmas crackers?”

“Because my people aren’t the only ones on the menu.” He reached down and picked up a small stack of papers, which he plopped down on the table before him.

It was a bunch of newspaper articles, some entire pages, going back about five days. They were all about missing children, or children found dead from cryptically described “homicidal violence”, ranging from the East End to Hampton Court; the youngest - one of the missing - was thirteen; the oldest was seventeen. “Mercy, one of my people, actually stumbled upon one of the corpses on an errand,” Hashim said, taking hold of his goblet of blood. “She said the life was stolen from it; that it looked like a mummy in FUBU.”

Where had he come across something similar?  Oh shit - the lamia. “Desiccated?  I killed the lamia queen; I didn’t think any could get through.”

Hashim shook his head. “You misunderstand me. They weren’t desiccated - their youth was taken away. They died of rapid onset old age. I’d say they were probably about two hundred years old, and since a normal Human body breaks down at around one hundred and twenty years, you can imagine how nasty that is.”

Logan waited for him to add a droll “I’m joking, of course,” but he didn’t.  He was dead serious, no pun intended. “Wait … you’re saying something rapidly aged them?”

“Well, yes. Or took the time they were supposed to have; took away their years of life, presumably to feed its own.”

“But the paper says homicidal violence.”

“The trauma of massive, rapid aging makes them look like they’ve been tromped on by an elephant. Mercy said she thought she stepped on an area rug at first.”

“What demon could do this?”

“Now, that I’m not sure. But it wouldn’t be above a sorcerer, or someone who cut a deal with some type of energy-sucking demon.”

“Have you talked to Camilla?”

“She’s been in Wales, I’m afraid. I expect her back tomorrow, though. But the strangeness doesn’t end there.”

Logan glared at him, wondering when this was going to stop. “Of course it doesn’t.”

“Ghita and I were almost attacked by a werewolf in Hyde Park last night.  Luckily, faced with two vampires, it turned tail and ran away rather than try anything.”

He shrugged, not getting it. “So? Werewolves aren’t allowed outside the dog runs?”

“Was last night a full moon?”

Logan was about to get up and storm out, tired of this bullshit, when he suddenly remembered seeing the moon last night, as he and Srina were walking back from that Vietnamese restaurant. It was a bright, white crescent above the streetlight … crescent moon. “No, no it wasn’t.  Is that a hard and fast rule?  That werewolves can only come out during full moons?”

“As far as I know, yes. I’ve only ever seen them about on full moons, so you can imagine my surprise.”

Logan considered what he'd been told, rubbing his forehead, as there was something off about it. “Wait a second - how does all of this connect? Someone's rapidly aging kids; someone's tearing up vamps; and werewolves are out before the full moon. What makes you think they’re connected?”

Hashim put his goblet back down, shoving it aside, his brow furrowing in what seemed to be genuine concern. “The power is starting to shift. You can feel it - well, no, we can feel it. Something has suddenly appeared, big enough to upset the balance, and no one seems to know what or why.  All we know is it’s powerful, and it’s rapidly gaining ground. The thing is, it won’t only swallow the undead population; it will swallow your people as well. I thought that might be of interest to you.”

Logan glanced at the news clippings, wondering why it was targeting kids. Perhaps because they had the most amount of life left?  Then why not hit toddlers - they had an even longer life span. (Maybe they were next … ) “So why dump this on me? Why not try and solve this yourself?”

He patiently ticked off the reasons on his slender fingers. “Because I need help. Because you are the messenger of Lady Blood, and she probably has resources I do not.  Because you have some connection to the gods, some of whom might be interested in this turn of events.  Because there is no one else I trust not to try and exploit this turn of events to their own advantage.”

He tried to read between the lines, figure out what Hashim was not saying, but he reluctantly came to the conclusion that he was probably being honest. That, all by itself, was a little frightening. Vampires weren’t supposed to be vulnerable, at least not to things that weren’t sunshine or wood.  Logan sighed, saying, “I’ll see what I can do.”

But where to start? It wasn’t like he knew any demon experts to help him if Camilla was out of town.

Or, wait a minute.  Maybe he did.

3

It didn’t take long to find her, which was a plus.

It actually took him longer to find the secret, off-site Watcher library, as last time he’d just been teleported to it. But he knew it was somewhere in Tooting, and he remembered the surrounding buildings and streets. The library was “disguised” - if you could call it that - as a boarded up, abandoned building with several different hazard signs plastered around. The thing was, the boarded up door was actually a façade; there was nothing but bricks beneath, and the same was true of the windows.  Logan put a hand against the mild but still tangible magic field around the building and walked around it, trying to pick up the feeling of a gap or a weakness.  He found a place where it lessened, where it was barely in existence, and it appeared to be a solid brick wall. He pushed his hand against it, and while it seemed solid at first, eventually it gave, his arm sliding through the illusion like it was wet tar. He pushed his way through, fighting the resistance, until he fell through into the dark, musty library, ending up face-first on the dusty grey carpet.

After sneezing a few times, he realized he wasn’t alone. “Just me, Anna,” he said to the resident ghost librarian. “From last time, with the vamp Watcher - remember?”

A book thumped on a rustic wooden table, and he took that as a yes. “There’s something weird going on out there, and I need your help.” There was nothing but thick silence, but he could sense her hovering about. Waiting for him to say more? Perhaps, so he went on. “I need to find a Watcher, but I don’t know that much about her. Her name is Ruby, and she’s a werewolf.  That’s all I know; I don’t even know if she survived that whole explosion thing. Is there any way you might know who she is, or where I can find her if she survived?”

A breeze passed by him, trailing the faintest scent of crushed and stale flowers.  He heard rustling deeper in the maze of the library, things being removed and replaced on shelves, and finally a slim book came hovering down the aisle before dropping on the wooden table, the book opening by itself and pages ruffling by rapidly as he climbed to his feet and walked over to it, careful to keep his distance.  He didn’t know if ghosts considered it rude for people to walk through them, or through the space that they - in theory - occupied, but he figured it was better safe than sorry.

The book spun around and slid across the table toward him. He saw that it was some kind of employment roster, a sort of Watcher’s yearbook. There was her name in the center of the page, Ruby Von Allmen, with a street address, and a line under “Notes” that read: ‘Bitten by werewolf during mission, 07/15/89’. That had to be her. “Thank you, Anna,” he said, memorizing the address, and trying to ignore the fact that nearly every name on the page, above and below hers, had in the notations area ‘Killed in action’ or ‘Missing’ . This included Wesley at the very bottom of the page, except his note listed the date of his “expulsion” before his date of death.  But since it had happened just recently, and after the deaths of so many other Watchers, how did it get in the book already?

He suddenly had the most curious thought. “You did this,” he said into the air, which was Anna. “You keep track of everyone, don’t you?”

No answer, but why had he really expected one? “Still the bookkeeper, after all this time. Well, I guess everyone needs a hobby, huh?”

A small, answering knock sounded throughout the library.  It might have seemed morbid, but hell, when you were already dead, what wasn’t?

Shit - what a weird, weird life he led.

****

Ruby lived outside of London proper, in one of the rural outskirts, which allowed her to have a quaint little storybook cottage and surrounding grounds running riot with flowers: pink candytufts and bright orange marigolds, purple foxgloves, tangles of roses in blood red and snow white behind spiky blue delphiniums and bright yellow daisies. he smell made him sneeze even before he opened the tiny white gate to her yard. A light glowed yellow in two windows, so somebody was home, but he had no idea if it was actually Ruby.

Logan was halfway up the cobblestone path when he realized that even if it was her who was home, if werewolves were changing no matter the phases of the moon, she could be one of them.  Looking up, he saw the bright white segment of the moon, lighting his path and perhaps mocking him in the subtlest way. Shit. Well, if she had wolfed out, he could deal with it - werewolves weren’t that hard to knock out, and they didn’t seem to like being cut, even if you weren’t using silver.

Reluctantly, he knocked on the door and waited, ready to pop his claws, listening hard for any dog-like panting or the much more obvious lupine howling.  But he didn’t hear it, or catch a single whiff of dog breath, as locks were undone and the door opened a crack.  Ruby stared out at him with a single eye, blue and cold, over her sharp, aquiline nose, her lips a thin, taut line. “Oh, it's you,” she said curtly.

“Yeah, hi. List -” Before he could finish his explanation, she closed the door on him. “Hey!” He could hear her start throwing locks again, so he pounded on the door. “I could break it down, you know!”

“And I could bite you,” she snapped back through the door. “What the hell do you want?”

“There’s some weird shit going on, and I need your help.  I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important, or if I had anyone else to turn to.”

He waited a moment, giving her a chance to think about it. “Is this about what’s happening in London?”

Bingo. “You're aware of that? What d’ya know?”

She started undoing the locks once more, and finally opened the door, just wide enough to let him in. She was wearing navy blue sweatpants and a long-sleeved black sweatshirt, her coffee brown hair cut into a severe pageboy. She looked a little dishelmed and slightly weary, but even so, it did nothing to soften her rock hard edges. She was like the schoolmarm from hell, even without the monthly lycanthropy thrown in. “The portents are very ugly,” she said, and he supposed that was an answer, just not a very helpful one. “Something powerful has set up camp. I don’t suppose you had anything to do with it, did you?”

“No.” He stepped inside and she shut the door behind him, throwing a deadbolt possibly out of habit. The inside of her home smelled like a chicken TV dinner, wine, and green tea incense, and in her sitting room, he saw a small table with a circle of votive candles in clear glass holders burning away, surrounding what appeared to be a tiny, random pile of dried bones, rune stones, and dried leaves.  He pointed at it, and asked, “Spell?”

She shrugged, a look of irritation flashing across her face. “Simple protection circle.  Now what is it you want?”

“Information. What can make a werewolf change before a full moon?”

She had started to walk back to her living room, where the BBC news was playing on mute like a silently unfolding tragedy, but froze as if he’d just smacked her on the ass.  The look she gave him would have given someone without a healing factor frostbite. “Why are you asking?”

“’Cause there was one runnin’ around Hyde Park last night, and hell, it could be there tonight.  I haven’t swung by yet.”

“Are you certain it was a werewolf?”

“It was identified as such by two vamps, who I think are gonna know a werewolf when they see one. Supernatural creatures seem to just know each other, don’t they?”

Considering how her eyes narrowed, she really didn’t appreciate the joke. “How did you find me?”

“Anna Harkness.”

Now she looked really confounded.  He was just going to assume that the last few months had been hard on her, and it showed on her face. Couldn’t he sympathize?  It was often difficult to be one of the lone survivors of something, no matter what it was. “How on Earth do you know her?  That Bob again?”

She said his name like it had left a bad taste in his mouth “No. Camilla introduced me. Vamp Camilla. Know her?  Used to be one of you.”

“Oh yes, the quitter,” she said derisively, walking away.  She sat in an armchair, where a brandy snifter full of a ruby red liquid awaited her on a side table.  She took a big swallow of it before adding, “We all have to die sometime. You’d think us Watchers would accept death a bit more gracefully than most.”

He’d heard that story. Camilla was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and rather than go through treatments that were on par with the disease, she simply set out to find a vampire that would turn her into one of them. Logan didn’t feel he could judge her, as he knew he would probably never be in such a position.  Besides, he was well aware that everyone made rash decisions that they occasionally lived to regret. “You haven’t answered my question,” he pointed out.  He could have sat down on her loveseat, but he decided he’d rather stand.  He didn’t think she’d allow him to be here long anyway.

“Which?  About supernatural creatures knowing each other?”

It was his turn to give her an acidic look. “No, about werewolves. You don’t want to tell me, do you?” Suddenly he had a very suspicious, paranoid thought - but hadn’t his paranoia always served him well? “Where were you last night, Ruby?  Not Hyde Park, was it?”